


to see the stars in her eyes

by hetzi_clutch



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Attempted Sexual Assault, F/F, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, I can't stop, Mentions of drugs and alcohol, Romance, and theyre totally in love, basically the doctor is a mess as a human and yaz is a star, discussion of trauma, human nature au, i cant promise itll be my last human nature au, i know another one, thasmin, this is the closest ill ever get to writing an all human au i swear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-31 05:22:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17843267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hetzi_clutch/pseuds/hetzi_clutch
Summary: Of all the ways Yaz had imagined the Doctor to be as a human, she hadn't quite imagined Jane Smith.(Human Nature AU where the Doctor as a human is...well, a mess.)





	to see the stars in her eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Based on that tumblr post: http://tinyurl.com/yysuvvau with original credit to nooowestayandgetcaught on tumblr. hope i did the idea some semblance of justice, even if it's not 100% exact
> 
> also geez i can't seem to put the human nature au concept away can i. idek what this is, but it's here, so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Of all the things Yaz might have guessed the Doctor to be as a human, she wouldn’t have thought she’d be a bit of a mess.

They lived next door to each other, Yaz made sure of that. Hallmates, hers literally right across from the Doctor’s, and it seemed like a good idea when she’d left the TARDIS—closer together, easier to keep an eye on her, right?—but by the end of the second month, she was almost regretting it.

The Doctor—Jane Smith, now—was a chaotic mess of a human, and it made Yaz wonder just how much of a mess she was as a Time Lord. She was a partier, staying up all night with groups of friends that never seemed to come by more than once or twice, and rushing off mid-morning to work at the nice, steady waitressing job Yaz had set up for her, which she seemed to be steadily ruining for herself. 

Yaz, on the other hand, woke up at seven AM sharp and wished she could check on the Doctor, went off to work at eight AM sharp and wished she could check on the Doctor, and spent the rest of her day dealing with parking disputes, and wondering about the Doctor. Or rather, Jane Smith. She came home in the evening, and stopped to pick up groceries on the way because she knew if she did she’d meet Jane Smith on her way out for the night. To a party, or a rave, or somebody’s house, and Yaz always made sure to exchange hellos in the hallway, and half-hoped half-dreaded that Jane would invite her inside. 

To say she worried herself sick was an understatement. The Doctor as a human was messy and unstable, and ran Yaz ragged, until finally she just threw up her hands and set an alarm for three AM, the earliest she could expect her to come back in. Then she would set up by the door to wait for the footsteps, or sometimes the pair of footsteps, and then she would sneak up to her door and peer through the peephole, just checking to make sure that Jane managed to drag herself safely inside. 

Sometimes she nearly didn’t. Sometimes she came home with others, boys or girls which she pulled down the hallway, laughing and tripping over herself, and these were the nights Yaz hated the most, for they showed her deeply broken and vulnerable in a way she shouldn’t be, at the mercy of other stupid humans taking their problems out on drugs and sex and alcohol. Sometimes she trudged down the hallway alone, with her head hung low, and sometimes she stomped down the hallway, muttering and angry and drawing her coat about her, and sometimes she weaved and stumbled, but always she arrived, and always Yaz watched and waited until she was safe inside before going back to bed.

And then one night Yaz set her alarm for three and waited an hour for Jane to arrive, and when she did, weaving drunkenly down the hallway, she fumbled with her keys and cursed, tried them again and failed, and then gave up and sagged against the wall until gravity dragged her to the floor, and that was where she stayed. Yaz watched all of this with an increasingly worried eye, and before she’d even hit the floor, had already made up her mind. 

It took all of two seconds to open the door and kneel before her. After a gentle shake which brought no response, Yaz maneuvered Jane’s limp form into her arms, dragged her into a half-standing half-leaning position, and led her inside to the sofa. Jane collapsed immediately upon it, the little mobility she had disappearing as soon as she hit the cushions. The sight of her almost made Yaz want to laugh, except that it was breaking her heart instead; in high heels and a short dress, make-up smeared across her face and snoring softly into the cushions, she looked as much of a mess as Yaz had ever known anybody to look, and she had seen Sonia following many a night out.

She stared at her until it became vaguely creepy, and then hastened to throw a blanket over her, making sure to use her soft one from her own bed and not the scratchy spare she owned. Then she tried to go off to her own bed, and failed. It was nearly six AM by this point anyway, an hour before she would have to get up, so she compromised with a book and a reading light and her door open, ears strained for any sounds of distress.

By the time eight o’clock rolled around, Jane was still not up and Yaz decided to call in sick. It was long overdue anyway, especially since she’d worked a week through a terrible cold back in November, so she felt little guilt over the lie. Instead, she set about making breakfast. 

Jane woke up at nine-thirty, and Yaz was just a little chuffed that she did it to the smell of frying eggs and toast in the toaster. It reminded her of the way her mum would wake her or Sonia up after a sanctioned night out—a birthday or likewise celebration. It always made her feel homey and safe, like she could go out and get a little carried away, and wake up knowing that her mum was looking out for her.

Jane didn’t seem to catch that feeling however. She woke up slowly and groaned, rubbed her eyes groggily, then looked around and woke up a lot faster.

“Um—” she sat straight up, and then groaned again and her hand flew to her head. “Sorry, is—is anybody home?”

“Yeah, I’m here,” Yaz called from the kitchen. “Hang on—”

She slid the last egg onto the plate and then balanced both in her hands as she maneuvered into the living room. Jane eyed her, uneasy and more than a little confused, and maybe a dash of apologetic. “Are you—did I—?”

“Not that I can remember.” Yaz placed the two plates on top of the coffee table, and then turned back to the kitchen. “Coffee?”

“Uh—yeah, thanks.” Jane stared at the food in front of her but didn’t touch it. Yaz risked a glance back right before she entered the kitchen, and saw her eyes dart around the room, trying to place things together, to figure out point A and point B.

“Here you go.” Yaz stuck with black just to be safe, and Jane took the proffered cup gratefully. “Thanks a load. And I’m sorry, I’m an awful person really, but I don’t—”

“I’m Yaz.” She clutched her own cup and settled into the armchair next to the sofa, slightly thankful that the flat had provided her with both. It would have been more than a little awkward to place herself right next to Jane on the sofa. “And it’s okay, I wasn’t out last night. You had a bit of trouble getting in your front door.”

“Oh. _Oh!”_ All at once, recognition slotted into place. “You’re Yaz from across the hall! Friendly neighbor Yaz.”

“Friendly neighbor Yaz?” amusement crept across her face. Jane shrugged, slightly abashed.

“Yeah, that’s what I call you to my mates. Well, not Yaz because I didn’t know your name til now, but my friendly neighbor. The one who always says hello in the evenings. You don’t get that a lot around here, you know.”

“Oh—right.” Suddenly Yaz felt a little embarrassed herself. She hadn’t thought Jane would register their little interactions to such an extent—she never seemed to. “Yeah, well I’m new in town, thought it’d be nice to get to know the neighbors.”

“I suppose you didn’t mean like this.” Jane gestured to herself, to the cushions on the couch now smeared with last night’s make-up. She definitely looked embarrassed now, her cheeks flushed pink, her gaze ducking. “Yeah I’m really sorry about that, I must of been in a right state—”

“Nah.” Yaz waved her hand, and took a sip of her coffee. “Just a little unconscious. It was nice actually. Sort of quiet.”

She’d meant it to be funny, but Jane looked torn between whether to laugh or apologize again. Quickly, Yaz set her cup down and said, “I’m just kidding. I really don’t mind—and I was just a little worried and all. It’s not as if we’ve got a guard down there to keep people from coming up.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Jane was looking at her oddly. Then she gave a slight shake of her head and, whatever thought she’d been entertaining, seemed to let it go. “Well I best get out of your hair then, I really didn’t mean to be a bother. I mean, if I’d have known I was going to cause you all that trouble I would have made a little more effort with my keys.”

“Thanks, but I saw how much effort you were making. And I appreciate it.” Yaz grinned, cheekily, which was unlike her and yet she couldn’t help it. There was something incredibly irresistible about teasing an abashed Jane, possibly because the Doctor never looked abashed if she could help it. She had too much confidence. The word abashed probably didn’t even exist in her language. “Are you sure you don’t want to finish your breakfast?”

Jane glanced at the eggs and toast in front of her, then back at Yaz. “Are you sure…you don’t mind?” 

Yaz gestured at her own plate. “I’ve got my own, so best you eat those. They’ll just go into the trash otherwise.”

Jane smiled. “Hmm. Great argument, Yaz. Very convincing. Well, I would have to invite you around my place sometime for thank you eggs, but I don’t know how to cook, so you’ll have to take thank-you fish fingers. Though I’m pretty good at burning those, now that I think of it.”

“Hmm.” Yaz pretended to consider this. “I really like eggs though. Maybe I could just teach you first, and then you could thank me?”

“That seems fair. But if I accidentally burn my flat down, I’m calling it arson and blaming it on you. Can’t afford that thing as it is.”

“Deal.”

————

Yaz found out that it was easy to talk to Jane Smith, that they bantered as easily as if she was the Doctor and they were back on the TARDIS—only Jane, despite their apparent spark, never actually initiated another conversation. She used her name now, when they passed in the hallway, and added a cheery grin to the end, but never went out of her way to invite Yaz over, or strike up a real conversation. She didn’t even make less noise in the hallway. She still went out every night, and she still mostly made it back to her flat every night, and the only difference was that, after another two nights that Yaz found Jane passed out in front of her door rather than safely behind it, she dug up a spare key and handed it over.

“Here,” she told Yaz. “Now you don’t have to give up your sofa. Just let me in, put me on the couch, or the rug or something, and lock behind you.”

Only she hadn’t let Yaz go into her flat when she’d gone to get the key, and, though she insisted on giving over the key despite Yaz’s protestations that she really didn’t mind, it took another two weeks before Yaz actually needed to use it.

It happened on one of those rare nights when Yaz stayed up late herself, catching up on TV shows because she didn’t have work tomorrow, and trying too hard not to think too hard about her current situation. It was an easy life in some ways, keeping an eye on the Doctor, and yet at the same time it very much wasn’t, because now she had a new constant in her life called worry, which on her worse days turned into anxiety, and on her longest nights turned into contemplation. She hadn’t quite known what to expect when the Doctor had explained the situation, but she’d sort of thought they’d end up at a university or something as equally high minded. She could easily picture the Doctor as some sort of kooky professor, writing incomprehensible equations on a board and ranting about perfectly sound theories that didn’t exist yet. She could’ve taken three months of that.

But the Doctor turned out to be someone completely different, and Yaz didn’t know if the TARDIS had sent them here on a random whim, or if she had yanked something very deep and very broken out of the Doctor’s psyche which Yaz simply hadn’t known about. Something which turned her into the kind of woman who could barely handle a waitressing job because she spent all of her money on drugs and alcohol, whose friends never seemed to last more than a couple days, and lovers less than that. 

Who most of all, seemed as if she were trying very hard to forget something. 

There was something about staying up until three in the morning, rather than waking up on the hour, which screwed with Yaz’s perception of time. Therefore, when a bang echoed in the hallway right in the middle of another episode of that American cop comedy Ryan had begged her to watch, Yaz nearly jumped out of her skin. Then she looked at the clock, saw it read three-thirty, and realized that she was right on time. 

By the time she glanced through the peephole, Jane was already a puddle on the floor. Yaz winced sympathetically, then went back into her bedroom to grab the key she’d left lying on the bedside table, and went to work.

She unlocked Jane’s door first, and out of curiosity, stepped inside for a quick look around. She had to find the light switch anyway, before she dragged her in here, or she might end up laying her on the coffee table instead of the bed. However, the second she stepped inside, Yaz realized why Jane had never invited her inside, not even for a quick peek.

The place was absolutely disgusting. 

The smell hit her first—the smell of trash that hadn’t been taken out for at least the past week or so, and probably more. Yaz grimaced, tears already coming to her eyes, and groped blindly for the light switch, which, if the flat was anything like hers, had to be— _there._

She flicked it on, and stared at the sight which greeted her. The smell, it turned out, had been a perfect indication of the state of the flat. Trash was everywhere, though none of it looked like the normal trash which came from living in an flat. Rather, it was the junk of a thousand parties left over and never been touched since; pizza boxes, fast food wrappers, empty glasses which littered the shelves and full ash trays, at least half a dozen of them, spread across the coffee table. The floor could only properly be called dirty, in the sense that Yaz took one look and then glanced gratefully down at the slippers she’d thought to put on her feet. 

The flat was geometrically laid out like hers, which meant the bedroom was at the back, and Yaz briefly considered just bringing Jane to the sofa, but one glance was enough to convince her otherwise. It was stained and threadbare—they’d only been there two months, _how_ —and it was empty of cushions, because they’d been thrown about the room, or placed on the floor to be used as makeshift seats.

“Alright,” she whispered to herself, and turned, already desperate to escape the overpowering pungency of the flat. She couldn’t imagine how Jane could live there, apparently unbothered by the mess surrounding her. It was almost nauseating to see. And more than a little sad.

“Right, let’s get you up.” She hoisted Jane to her feet, who had enough consciousness left to crack one bleary eye open and mumble “Yaz?” and then enough goodwill to do some of the work herself. “Where are we goi…”

“To bed,” Yaz told her firmly, and together they stumbled through what could courteously be called the wreckage of the flat. “To your bed.”

“Mmm.” Jane nodded, her eyes already closed, and she came easily, one hand slung over Yaz’s shoulders, the other swinging freely. “Thanks, Yaz.”

“It’s nothing.” With one hand she reached out and pushed the already slightly-ajar door to the bedroom open. It swung easily at first, then got stuck on clothes littering the floor. Yaz sighed and forced it open, maneuvering herself and Jane inside before pressing the light.

The bedroom, to her surprise, was far better than the rest of the flat. Clothes covered the floor, sure, and there were cups and an almost full ashtray on the bedside table, but the only other thing to indicate disorganization was the unmade bed which, admittedly, Yaz was also a victim of herself. It struck her that Jane probably didn’t sleep here that often. 

She thought of the purple sofa, and shuddered.

“Right, let’s get you into bed.” She half-led half-carried Jane to the bed, and laid her down on the part where the covers had been pulled back. Jane passed out as soon as her head hit the pillows, though there was a good chance she’d already been asleep before she had even gotten to the bed. Yaz looked at her for a moment, taking in her short dress and the leggings she wore, which would certainly be uncomfortable to sleep in, and wondered if she ought to change her into pajamas. Then she realized just what that meant she’d have to do, and blushed bright red. 

Fortunately, Jane wasn’t awake to see the blush. Yaz compromised by prying off her heels and lining them up next to her closet—a tiny speck of order in the chaotic room. They looked funny sitting next to the open closet, which was mostly empty anyway, with the majority of its contents tossed around the room. She stared at it, then glanced around at the mess, and thought about how much the room—no, the entire flat—could use a deep cleaning.

Maybe she could help with that.

She let herself out quietly, making sure to lock the door behind her, and gave up on the rest of the TV series to head to bed. She didn’t have work tomorrow, but she had a plan, and if she was right, and Jane wasn’t working either—Yaz sort of guiltily kept a semi-accurate schedule of her work—then she could put it in motion.

First though, she needed sleep. Sleep, and lots of cleaning supplies.

————

By ten-thirty the next day, there had been no sound of Jane rushing down the hallway late for work, so Yaz decided she’d made the correct assumption. She gathered up the cleaning supplies she’d bought at an hour early enough to draw a strange look from the cashier, and crossed the hall.

It took three tries knocking before she even heard the sounds of movement. It took another five minutes (and several more persistent knocks), before she heard an irritated “Alright, I’m comin’!”, and still another few minutes before a key jangled in the lock. Yaz arranged her face into the brightest smile she could manage, after a nearly sleepless night helping a drunk Jane back into her worryingly-messy flat. Somehow, it wasn’t too hard.

Jane’s face was all ready to tell her off, Yaz could tell, and only stopped when she actually looked up and saw who it was standing there, grinning. Yaz figured she probably expected the landlord. She was no stranger to noise complaints.

“Hi!” Yaz chirped, and shifted slightly, readjusting the piles of cleaning supplies stacked in her arms. “Mornin’.”

“Mornin’.” Jane looked taken aback for a moment, but then her eyes traveled to the cleaning supplies held in Yaz’s hands, and the surprise turned to narrow-eyed suspicion. “Hang on—did you let me into my flat last night?”

“Yep.” Yaz nodded enthusiastically. Jane looked far less so. 

“And I suppose you saw…”

“The state of the place?”

“Yeah.” Jane’s eyes traveled once more down to the cleaning supplies, and she groaned. “What’d you do, buy out the whole shop?”

“Something like that.” Yaz was already letting herself in, and Jane took a step backwards to let her, too bleary-eyed and stunned by the situation to put up more of a fight.

“And you’re really going to make me do this on my day off?” Jane turned to look at her, one hand absentmindedly pushing the door shut.

“Consider it your thank-you fish fingers,” Yaz called back. She’d already set most of the supplies down, and was on her way to the bathroom with a bucket and soap. “And it’s my day off too!”

She didn’t wait for a reply, but as she turned into the bathroom she heard another resigned sigh, and smiled to herself. 

———

The cleaning took most of the day, but Yaz had expected that. Jane clearly hadn’t, and her scowl grew deeper as the mid-morning sunshine passed into midday, and then stretched into long afternoon shadows. It probably didn’t help that she looked extremely hungover, dark circles under her eyes and dressed in the pajamas Yaz had forced her to switch to, which clearly hadn’t seen a laundry machine in a while.

“How long does it take to clean a flat, anyway?” Jane asked once, around midafternoon. They still hadn’t gotten to the bedroom, but the living room and kitchen were slowly starting to show under all the dirt that had been stripped away.

“An hour or two, usually,” Yaz answered from the kitchen, on her hands and knees as she swiped a sponge across the floor. A mop had proved to be useless for all the semi-permanent grunge—fish finger spills?—which had dried into the linoleum.

“We’re nearly six hours in.”

“Yeah well, yours is special.”

Jane huffed, but continued to push a broom under the sofa, sweeping away the accumulated ash and fast food debris that had fallen. 

It took another two hours for them to finish, and they ended up in the bedroom, sorting the last of the laundry into clean and dirty piles, the former of which was folded and returned to the closet. That bit took a little longer than intended, as Jane and Yaz had differing opinions on ‘clean’. However, they finished just as the last of the sunlight was fading into early winter nighttime, and trooped tiredly back into the living room, which was now more or less spotless. 

“It looks good, doesn’t it?”

Jane eyed the place wearily, and sighed. “Guess so. Don’t expect me to be doing that next Saturday, though.”

“You won’t have to if you keep it up.”

Jane’s look of disbelief clearly conveyed the likelihood of that possibility. Yaz glanced around the living room, noticed the cleaning supplies which still had to be bundled up and carried over to her place, and stifled a yawn. Suddenly, she was very, very tired.

Jane noticed. “Need some help carting your stuff back over?”

“Um…” Yaz tried to stifle another yawn, and failed. “Dunno. Maybe you should keep it.”

Jane snorted. “I like your optimism. S’okay though. I can help you carry it back.”

“Yeah,” Yaz answered, sleepily. It was that kind of fatigue that came by surprise, the delayed weight of a nearly sleepless night and long day of physical labor crashing down all at once, dragging her eyelids to the ground. She shook her head, trying to dislodge the grogginess. “Actually, you mind if I just get it tomorrow? Don’t think I’ve got the energy to drag it all back today.”

Jane watched her, and didn’t immediately answer. Yaz looked over, and gave a tired smile. “This isn’t reverse psychology, promise. I’m just tired.”

“I can tell.” She studied her for a moment, and then seemed to decide something. “Hey, you can stay here for a bit if you want. We can, I dunno, watch a show or something.”

“You’re not gonna go out?”

Jane shrugged. “I’d feel bad, messing up all this work.” Then she flashed a grin, slightly mischievous. “I’ll wait til tomorrow though. Once I’m sick of the clean.”

“Oh god.” Yaz groaned, and took the invitation by way of collapsing on the sofa. She wouldn’t have touched it four hours ago. “You really don’t mind? Just for a bit, I promise. Then I’ll let you go.”

Jane smiled, softly this time. She was still wearing the pajamas she’d cleaned in, an oversized shirt and shorts, and when Yaz looked sleepily up at her, it occurred to her that it was absolutely unfair, the Doctor looking that good in pajamas. 

“I’ve got a laptop, and some shows. You have a preference?”

“Um, I was watching this—” she thought back to three in the morning, scrunching her face as she tried to remember the name of the show. “This American comedy. Brooklyn something.”

“Brooklyn nine-nine?” Jane raised an eyebrow. “Because you’re a cop?”

“Yes, exactly!” Yaz broke out into a grin, unable to help it. “Yeah, my friend recommended it, wanted to know how accurate it is.”

“Oh.” Jane seemed vaguely impressed. “Is it?”

Yaz’s smile faded somewhat. “I don’t know. I’m not a detective. Or American.”

“Oh, yeah. Well obviously.” The silence hung between them for a moment, and then Jane paled slightly. “Hang on, but you know that I…”

“Oh. Uh, I’m not a snitch,” Yaz said hastily, though something inside her winced at the words. The truth was that if her neighbor were anybody else, she would have reported them by week one, for the heavy weed smell emanating from the apartment alone. Thankfully, at least that was gone now, due to their massive cleaning efforts. Still, Yaz didn’t hold with drugs in any way, shape or form. Even alcohol wasn’t a big thing with her, though Sonia seemed to like it. And she never, on any earth, would have said the words “I’m not a snitch”, to a hallmate. Not even an undeniably cute one. 

Only Jane wasn’t a hallmate, she was the Doctor. Which meant Yaz had to put some of her rules aside. Even if it made her cringe internally.

But Jane relaxed at the words, then grinned. “Right, so you’re like, one of the cool feds.”

Once again, Yaz suppressed a cringe. “I mean, we’re friends, aren’t we? And as long as you aren’t selling…”

“No, of course not!” Jane’s eyes widened, and she brought her hands up defensively. “As if I had the know-how, anyway, and—you know what? I’m going to stop before I put my foot in my mouth.”

Yaz grimaced, and wondering if she was breaking any laws by doing this. Possibly some sort of bystander misdemeanor. “You’re lucky my badge is in my apartment.”

“Well, now I really can’t let you leave.” Jane gave her a lopsided grin, the kind the Doctor used to give. Yaz’s heart flipped. “You okay with watching from a laptop?”

“’Course I am.” Another yawn welled up, and she tried to stifle it. “That’s how I usually watch, anyway.”

“Brilliant.” Jane had already disappeared down the hallway but the word floated after her, sending a warm tingle down Yaz’s spine. It was so, so reminiscent of the Doctor. God, she missed her.

She appeared a moment later, laptop in hand and blanket in the other, one Yaz recognized as having been sorted into the clean (or, clean enough) pile only minutes ago. She didn’t hesitate but flopped down next to Yaz, close enough to set off a pleasant flutter in her stomach, and opened the screen.

“Brooklyn nine-nine, right?”

“Yeah, it’s on Netflix.” Jane’s presence was warm and undeniably comfortable, and she didn’t bother with keeping a distance, but snuggled up so that they could share a blanket, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Which was funny, because it never had been, with the Doctor. Yaz resisted the urge to lean her head on her shoulder; she could already feel her eyelids drooping, but she didn’t want to pass out yet. She still had to get back to her apartment.

Jane was busy pulling up her internet browser, and punching something into Google. “Right, one sec.”

“I was on season one, but—hey, what are you doing?”

Jane’s eyes were still on the screen, which most definitely was not displaying the Netflix site. “I don’t have Netflix, so I’ve gotta download. Don’t worry though, it’ll be a couple minutes, max.”

“But—that’s illegal!” Yaz jerked upright, and her eyes flew to Jane’s utterly complacent face. “You can’t download things, you’ll get in trouble!”

Jane laughed softly, and Yaz felt herself go red. “Don’t worry, if the feds track us, I’ll tell them you had nothing to do with it.”

Now she was _really_ red. “That’s not—can’t you just use my account?”

Jane stopped, and looked over at her in surprise. “That would be faster, yeah. You don’t mind though?”

Yaz shrugged. The movement caused their blanket, pulled up to her shoulders, to slip down. Jane watched the blanket fall, and she reached out to pull it back up again. “Cos if you really don’t mind, I won’t download it. We’ll be good citizens.”

Somehow, even while human, the Doctor managed to run circles around Yaz. The blanket being but one small example. She reached up and clutched the edge of it under her chin, securing it against further slip-ups. “Yeah, go ahead. I trust you.”

Jane stared at her, eyebrows raised. “Very risky choice of words, Khan. I don’t think I’ve ever had somebody tell me that seriously.”

“Okay.” Yaz rolled her eyes. “What’re you gonna do, watch movies on my account? How terrible, really.”

“Yeah, or I could change your password and lock you out.” She was grinning as she said this, but as Yaz stared at her, the grin slowly dripped from her face. “But, um—I wouldn’t actually do that. Cos we’re friends. We are friends, right?”

Yaz looked at her, long enough for Jane to shift uncomfortably. Then she pulled a hand out from underneath their blanket, and swept it across the now-clean flat. “Definitely enemies. Would never do this for a friend.”

“Oh.” Jane hesitated, then smiled. “Thought you did it out of pity, if I’m being honest.”

Yaz snorted. “Okay, a little bit of that too.”

“Hmm.” Her eyes fell back to the screen. “Knew you had a double agenda. You’re trying to turn me into an upstanding citizen.”

Yaz bit her lip, trying not to laugh. She couldn’t quite manage it. “Okay, I’ll give you the password if you shut up about the cop thing, yeah?”

Jane’s eyes were still on the screen, her head bent forward so that Yaz couldn’t quite make out her expression, but she caught her smile in the reflection of the computer screen anyway; soft and shy and sort of pleased, as if Yaz’s laughter was just the victory she’d been hoping for.

“Deal, fed.”

Yaz didn’t have a pillow to toss at her, but she did manage to flip the edge of the blanket right into her face.

————

When Yaz woke up, it was to a crick in her neck and an elbow jutting into her ribcage. The crick could be jotted down to the relative cheapness of her bedset, but the elbow in her ribs was something new, and it was enough to force her to crack at least one eye open, in order to figure out why somebody else was in her bed.

And then she remembered that she wasn’t in her bed.

She was on Jane’s couch, and they were completely entangled. Probably a result of their combined fatigue and the limited space on the couch, Yaz wanted to assume, but she also had a vague memory of nestling into Jane’s shoulder sometime during the first episode. She must have passed out right after, because she couldn’t exactly remember why that had been a good idea. Jane was warm, of course, and soft (minus the elbow sticking into her), but she was also so far on the other side of the boundaries Yaz had privately established for the Doctor’s little human field trip that she couldn’t figure out how she could have possibly crossed them without several drinks in her hand.

And she was pretty sure they hadn’t been drinking. She had fallen asleep far too quickly for that. 

“Okay…okay.” Moving as quickly and as carefully, as she could, she began to disentangle herself from Jane. The elbow sticking into her was the first and easiest to go, but the rest proved to be difficult, and the more she tried to move, the more Jane began to stir.

“Mmm.” Yaz froze. She felt Jane’s head shift against her shoulder, then felt, rather than heard, her enormous yawn vibrate against her. “…oh hey, Yaz. What time is it?”

“It’s…” that was a good question. However, Yaz’s watch was on the hand currently wedged between Jane’s shoulder and the couch. When had she decided to put her hand across her shoulders? “Um, I need my watch…”

She fluttered her fingers helplessly towards her trapped arm, and could already feel the heat rising to her cheeks. It was impressive, really, that Jane could do something so inconsequential as letting her fall asleep on her shoulder, and that was enough to turn Yaz into a puddle on the floor. Or couch, so to speak. 

Jane yawned again, and glanced blearily towards where Yaz was indicating. “Oh, right. Sorry.” She leaned forward, allowing Yaz to snatch her hand back and glance intently at her watch, with all the concentration of one who was trying furiously to suppress a blush.

“It’s…10:28.” There was something wrong about that time, Yaz knew, but she was still too focused on trying to figure out how she’d ended up in such a tangle with Jane to figure out what it was.

Jane, however, seemed to know what it was, for at Yaz’s answer, she jerked upright, her eyes widening. “Oh fuck, I’m late for work!”

Oh, right. The penny dropped, sending Yaz’s stomach to the ground with it. Jane’s sudden movement sent her falling backwards onto the cushions, but only for a moment before she too scrambled off the couch. “Oh my god, me too!”

Jane was already halfway down the hall leading towards her bedroom by the time Yaz was on her feet. She began patting her pockets, searching for her phone, only to recall that she’d set it down beside her on the couch, just before falling asleep. Except now it was nowhere to be found. She began to tear apart the couch, tossing cushions onto the floor— _so much for orderliness_ —until at last she dug her hand into the crevice between armrest and couch cushion, and her fingers closed over the device.

She pulled it out with a triumphant grin, which turned to horror as she unlocked the screen. Seven missed calls, all from her boss. Half a dozen texts, all along the lines of _where are you???_

Yaz grimaced, and her finger hovered over the _call back_ button. She really wasn’t looking forward to explaining her tardiness to her boss. Yaz was the opposite of tardy—when she’d finished secondary, she’d received an award for never being late. She’d never been late to work, unless she was sick—or pretending to be, the one time. Calling in late—owning up to her mistake—sent more jitters running through her stomach than lying about being sick.

Her finger stayed frozen above the _call back_ button. Maybe she should just call in sick. Say she’d been puking all morning. It would only be the one time, right? Or rather, the second time. Only twice, out of her entire police career.

Yaz bit her lip, indecisive.

And then, as she was still staring at her screen, the phone unexpectedly began to vibrate. A caller ID showed up; it was her boss. Calling, for the eighth time, to find out where she was. 

Yaz took in a deep breath, and then, before she could lose her nerve, swiped open the call and held the phone up to her ear.

_“Yaz? Where are you? Your shift’s started two hours ago!”_

Yaz took another deep breath—she needed it, she realized—and when she spoke, tried to make her voice sound as weak and faint as possible. “I’m really sorry. I’m…I’m sort of ill. Really ill.”

_“Oh.”_ He paused, taken aback. _“Well, why didn’t you call in? I need to know these things before—”_

“I know, I’m really sorry.” She swallowed, trying to feign difficulty speaking. “I woke up….and felt so sick I could barely move. Then I threw up and passed out again. I’m really, really—”

_“Alright, alright, I understand.”_ He sounded reluctant, but she could hear the slight sympathy in his tone. _“How do you think you’ll be tomorrow then? Should I reschedule?”_

“No, no,” she said quickly—too quickly. She reeled it back. “I mean, I’m hoping it’s just a 24 hour thing, yeah? I’ll call you tonight, let you know.”

_“Yeah, fine.”_ There was a moment of silence on his end of the line. _“And Yaz? Don’t pull that again. You had the whole station worried.”_

Despite herself, Yaz smiled. “I—sorry. Won’t do it again.”

_“Better not.”_ He was trying to sound gruff now, but the clear relief in his tone ruined the effect. _“Alright, tomorrow then. And let me know, tonight.”_

“Will do.”

_“Good. And feel better.”_

“Oh, um—thanks.”

_“Nothing for.”_ He hung up, and she did too, feeling odd. A bit elated, yeah, that she was getting another day off to make up for the one she’d spent cleaning, but rather guilty, too. The fact that she’d apparently had the station worried sick just compounded it. Yaz stuck her phone into her pocket, and shook her head. No use thinking about it now. She’d done the thing, and guilt or no, she was going to have to keep up with the lie whether she liked it or not.

Besides, what was one more life in a lie that was pretty much made for them? For example, her new—old—friend. Yaz turned, and called down the hall. “Hey, Jane? I called in sick, so I’m just gonna take my stuff and…”

She trailed off in the middle, as it was clear Jane couldn’t hear her. No response issued from the bedroom, only a muffled cursing. Yaz hesitated for a moment, and then started down the hallway. “Jane? I’m—”

She was almost bowled over as Jane rushed by her, sending her stumbling into a wall. “Oh, sorry Yaz!” her hand came out to catch Yaz’s wrist just as she fell, and she yanked her upright again without stopping her stride. The result was that she ended up half-dragging Yaz back into the living room as well.

Yaz blinked in surprise and followed her, mainly out of lack of options—Jane, too scattered to let go, maintained her absentminded death-grip on Yaz’s wrist all the way into the living room.

“Keys, where are my keys?” she muttered, yanking Yaz in a circle as she spun around, scanning the room.

“I don’t know, but are you planning on taking me to work as well?”

Jane glanced at her, and then her eyes traveled down to her hand encircling Yaz’s wrist. “Oh!” she jerked her hand away, cheeks coloring in embarrassment. “Sorry, I’m not even thinking straight, I’ve just got to get to work otherwise my boss’ll—”

Yaz shook her head. “No need to explain. And your keys are in the front door. I think you left them there when you let me in yesterday morning.”

“Huh?” Jane’s eyes swung around to meet the door where, sure enough, her keys dangled from the knob. “Oh. Huh. That’s probably not good.”

Yaz’s lips twitched. “Yeah. I was sort of thinking the same thing.”

Jane scowled, though there was no bite behind it. “Alright, no need to be smart. Not like there’s anything valuable in this crappy little flat, anyway.”

“There’s you.” The reply slipped out of her without thought, and instantly Yaz wanted to take it back. Even Jane, despite her hurry, turned around to look at her. “What?”

“I mean—” Internally, Yaz cursed. What did she mean? That the Doctor—and therefore Jane Smith—was kind and wonderful and Yaz’s best friend, and thus worth the entire universe in her eyes? Why would she tell that to Jane Smith, whom she’d only really known—not counting the time watching across the hall—for a couple days, at most? From the outside, it looked incredibly stalkerish. 

And Jane was still staring at her.

“I mean—you’re my friend, and you’re valuable. And somebody could break in and hurt you, so…” she didn’t know where to go from there, but Jane was still looking at her, and as she trailed off into awkward silence, she shook her head in disbelief.

“Thanks Yaz, but trust me: I’m not even worth getting robbed at this point.”

And then she turned and started across the room for her keys, leaving Yaz to stare, open-mouthed, after her. She couldn’t fathom what Jane meant by that—or maybe she didn’t want to. Because it could have been an entirely innocent, if slightly off-color joke about her financial status, or it could have been…something much worse. And Yaz wasn’t sure she wanted to ask.

Jane yanked the keys out of her door, stuffed them in the apron pocket of her waitressing uniform—an ugly pattern of off-red and pale green—and went to fling the door open. Then she stopped, hand on the doorknob, and turned back to face Yaz. “Hang on, where’s your rush? Didn’t you say you were late too?”

“Yeah, I—” Yaz worked her jaw, trying to recover her speech. She was still reeling from Jane’s seemingly off-hand remark. “I called in sick.”

_“What?”_ Jane spun fully around, her hand leaving the doorknob. She tossed her hands in the air. “Well if I’da known that, I would have called in sick too! If the police aren’t even coming to work, why do I have to?”

“Um.” Yaz wasn’t sure how to respond to this. “Don’t you want to keep your job?”

Jane shrugged, and gestured towards herself, towards the red and green apron. “Do I look like a happy employee?”

She didn’t. With her hair thrown haphazardly in a ponytail it was really too short for, a disgruntled look on her face and her weight shifted to one hip, she looked the epitome of job dissatisfaction. Yaz looked her over, and had to bite down on a chuckle. “Okay, maybe not. But it brings in money, doesn’t it?”

Jane snorted. “Barely enough to afford this place. Though it’s looking a lot better this side of yesterday, I’ll give you that. Hell, if I could find a cheaper flat, I’d quit so fast the manager wouldn’t have time to see me come and go.”

“Oh. That’s—” _not good news._ They only had a few weeks left until Yaz could open the watch, hidden safely in a wooden box in her own bedroom, but she couldn’t very well do that if Jane up and left. And it looked as if she wanted to, which was hardly surprising given the Doctor’s history of, well…leaving. 

Jane was watching her, arms crossed as if she expected Yaz to argue. “I—that’s—what, you don’t have any good memories of this place, anything you’d be sad about leaving?”

It was a pitiful argument, and she wanted to replace the words as soon as they’d left her lips. Of course, the Doctor had set it up that she would move in only a week or two before Yaz, so it wouldn’t seem too suspicious. Jane had only been around two and a half months, maybe even less. And she’d spent most of it getting drunk and partying with strangers. What could she really care about leaving behind?

But Jane tilted her head to one side, studying Yaz. A small crease appeared upon her brow, and her eyes narrowed. “I suppose I’ve got one or two. Don’t know if that’s enough to make me keep this dump, though. And yesterday doesn’t count, if you were thinking.”

“What, all of yesterday?” the words were out before she could really parse the implications in her head. Of course, there _were_ implications, which was why she’d said it, but they were implications which encroached steadily on the lines she’d placed upon herself, and now she didn’t even have the excuse of sleep to back them up. 

But a slow smile spread across Jane’s face. “Okay, I’ll give you that. In the ten minutes _you_ were conscious watching that show, it was a nice time.”

“Only ten minutes?” She must have really been exhausted. Then something struck her. “Wait, but if _I_ was only conscious for—”

“Oh yeah, I finished half the season.” Jane glanced back at the door, then withdrew her phone from her pocket to check the time. She cursed, and ran a hand over her ponytail. When she brought it down, her face was set. “Okay, I’m just gonna call in—”

“No, wait!” Yaz desperately wanted to ask a different question, namely why Jane hadn’t had the courtesy to move her, or wake her up, unless—but that wasn’t relevant now. “Don’t call in.”

Jane looked at her, raising an eyebrow. “Why not? You did.”

“Yeah, but I could, um, come sit with you.” She was making it up as she went along, grasping at straws which in her hands seemed to be turning into those troublesome lines she wasn’t supposed to be crossing. “I could, um….come keep you company, while you work. Make the time go by.”

Jane stared. “You…really want me to keep this job, don’t you?”

“I…” she tried to make her mouth work, but it was having some trouble. “I’m just trying to turn you into an upstanding citizen, is all. It’s what we feds do.”

This time she barely cringed internally at the word _fed._ Almost as if she was getting used to it.

Jane surveyed her for a moment, and then sighed. “Alright, fine. I won’t call in. But let me tell you, Khan, you’ve got your work cut out for you.”

It took Yaz a moment to find her voice. “On making your job fun, or turning you into an upstanding citizen?”

Jane had already turned back to face the door, but her laugh traveled. “Both.”

————

Jane was right. Her job was boring as hell. 

Yaz sat at the counter—or bar, she supposed—of the homey little cafe, and sipped her coffee, trying not to listen to Jane getting browbeaten in the kitchen. It was a tough task, considering the bar was only a couple meters removed from the kitchen door. She almost considered putting headphones in, and was just reaching into her jeans pocket at the manager’s shout of “One more time and you’ll be out on your ass!”, when the door banged open and Jane stalked out, her expression stormy and eyes hard as flint. She brushed past Yaz, leaving the kitchen door swinging behind her, and Yaz swiveled in her seat, trying to think of something to say. Then she saw her whip out a notepad, and realized that she was working. So she turned slowly back to the front, took another sip of her coffee, and tried to think of what she _would_ say when they had the chance to talk.

As it turned out, she needn’t have worried. Only a half hour later, somebody plopped into the seat beside her, and when Yaz looked up, it was into Jane’s ruefully grinning face.

“Sorry you had to hear all that.” She jerked one thumb towards the kitchen door, and Yaz’s eyes darted to it, before coming back to Jane. “He’s a bit of an arse, but I suppose he’s in the right this time. You did make me late.”

“ _I_ made you—” Yaz started, and then stopped when she realized that Jane’s rueful grin had melted into sparkling mischief. “Oh, haha. Real funny. You could have kicked me out at any time, you know.”

“Yeah, but you looked so cute and peaceful lying there.” Jane’s eyes fell to Yaz’s thigh, and with the closed tip of her pen, she began tracing shapes into the denim. It might have been an absentminded gesture, only there was something in the just-so-casual way she did it that made it seem anything but. “Didn’t have the heart to wake you.”

“You—” Yaz shook her head, trying to feign exasperation, which was terribly hard when the point of the pen tickled her thigh and Jane was being so carefully nonchalant about it. “You—”

“Really need to get back to work.” Without warning Jane stuffed the pen back into her pocket and slid off her stool. Yaz watched her go, slightly speechless, a part of her wondering if what had just happened. Had that been the Doctor, a little bit? Or had it been all Jane?

Jane turned around, caught her eye, and winked—a wide open wink, the kind that people did when they weren’t that good at winking, so they made a show out of it. A small laugh escaped Yaz’s lips, and without thinking she clapped a hand over her mouth to suppress it, which only made her reaction more blatant. She couldn’t help it—Jane was incredibly dorky. And Yaz hadn’t meant to let it get to her.

“You can’t wink,” she said through the fingers clamped over her mouth, and when she removed them knew immediately it was too early; her cheeks were still red, and she still had that awful urge to laugh bubbling up in her throat. “You _really_ can’t wink.”

Jane rolled her eyes. “Can’t blame me for trying.” She started to move off, out into the sea of mostly empty tables, before stopping and turning back. “And Yaz?”

“Yeah?”

“I really appreciate you keeping me company. And the flat-cleaning and all.” She smiled, and this was one of her soft ones, the kind Yaz hadn’t really seen directed at anybody but her. “You might make me an upstanding citizen yet.”

Yaz grinned, despite the erratic thumping of her heart. She’d grown used to that reaction by now. Both Jane and the Doctor were especially good at pulling it out of her. “It’s nothing. You should see what I’ve got planned for your cooking lessons.”

“Oh, god.” The smile vanished from Jane’s face. She shook her head, and turned back to the tables, just as a man waved an impatient hand in the air. “Give up while you’re still ahead, Yaz.”

The words carried back, and Jane was too far away to hear Yaz’s response, but she said it anyway, leaning back against the counter, a dopey grin she hadn’t quite noticed upon her face.

“Never.”

————

Yaz ended up sitting at the cafe for Jane’s entire shift, leaving only once to run back to her apartment and grab a book, ostensibly to keep herself occupied. In reality, she kept herself occupied with stealing glances at Jane from across the room, and feeling her heart pound whenever Jane caught her eye and shot her one of those ridiculous winks, or a soft, rather shy smile. Occasionally, when there was a lull, she would come over and sit beside Yaz, a little too close to be casual, and doodle more invisible pictures along her thigh. Every single time, Yaz could feel her blood rush to her face, and would count her lucky stars that she was already sitting down, because the Doctor, even as a human, had no right to be acting so… _friendly._

When Jane got off, sometime in the early evening, they walked back to their flat block together, taking it slow despite the cold. Some part of Yaz didn’t want this to end, even though, logically, she knew it didn’t have to. They lived across the hall from each other, after all. And they were friends now, sort of. Always had been, in a different sense. Maybe this time, now that they had broken past the first awkward barriers, and with Jane constantly shooting strange, contemplative glances at her—maybe now, Yaz hoped, it would stick.

And then Jane didn’t speak to her for another week. 

It was starting to give Yaz whiplash, the way Jane spun around, and only to leave her standing in the same place she’d started. Not to mention that it was incredibly frustrating. As if she still considered them to be strangers. Hallmates, at most, but nothing more. As if they didn’t have a history spanning time and space. 

Though of course, from Jane’s point of view, they didn’t. 

But that did nothing to help Yaz understand her sudden attitude shifts—though they couldn’t even be called as such, really. Jane was the same person greeting Yaz in the hall as she was when she let Yaz fall asleep on her shoulder. She never seemed unhappy to see her, and didn’t appear to regret the time spent together—except for the cleaning, maybe. 

Except that they had spent what amounted to an entire _weekend_ together, only Jane was still ignoring her. As if Yaz hadn’t cleaned up her entire bloody flat. And as if she hadn’t spent her entire—though unwarranted—day off keeping Jane company on her shift. As if she hadn’t hauled her into her flat several times. Or made her breakfast. Or—

It didn’t matter. Unless Yaz tried to force her way into her life, Jane wouldn’t even crack open the door.

That didn’t stop her from trying. She still said hello in the hallways, and still set her alarm for three AM before she went to bed, and still carried Jane back into her flat one night, even though she was half-dead from pulling an unusually late shift herself. When she’d turned on the light, it was to see that the flat was slowly inching back to its previous state, the pizza boxes and ashtrays curling around the furniture like vines creeping over a wall. The sight sent a pang through her heart, though she couldn’t quite say why.

And the next day, before she had to leave for her shift, Yaz marched out to the store and brought a cheap calendar to pin to the wall. Then she began marking off days.

It had been nearly three months. Two months, and three weeks, to be exact, which meant they only had a week to go, a week which, as they rounded the corner into it,Yaz found herself approaching with mixed feelings. On one hand, she was sick of Jane ignoring her, sick of being the Doctor’s keeper, sick of watching both Jane and the Doctor destroy themselves from the inside out. On the other hand, she had so many questions now, many of which she was sure the Doctor didn’t want to answer, and none of which she was even sure she wanted to ask. It put a startling new light to her and the Doctor’s relationship, one Yaz might not have cared to flip on, had she known what it would reveal. Not to mention that she was pretty sure the Doctor would never have wanted Yaz to see her like this; broken, and messy, and utterly _human,_ a far cry from the Time Lord she was supposed to be. 

Or maybe it wasn’t so far from who she really was, and that was what scared Yaz most of all.

———

But despite her misgivings, the last week got off to a smooth start—and with every passing day, as the end heaved into sight, Yaz grew more and more excited to finally see the whole experiment come to a close. Jane still wasn’t talking to her, beyond the occasional hello, and though Yaz had tried to force it more than a couple times, Jane had only rebuffed her offers to finish Brooklyn nine-nine. It was awkward, and embarrassing, and once the last few days came around, Yaz gave up trying completely. It wouldn’t make a difference now, anyway. Soon enough, Jane would be the Doctor, and then _she_ could explain all the things that Jane apparently didn’t want to.

And then, only a day before Yaz was due to open the pocket watch, Jane brought somebody home.

This wasn’t an unusual occurrence in itself, except that Yaz hated it. And it hadn’t happened much in the last couple of weeks, to which Yaz could only offer a silent prayer of gratitude. She hated the drop in her stomach that came when, plastered against her door’s peephole, she would watch Jane pull some stranger down the hall, usually another person drunk or stoned out of their mind, giggling and weaving nearly as much as Jane, if not more. Sometimes they’d stop in the hall, up against the wall, and then Yaz would jerk away from the door, feeling at the same time both sickeningly voyeuristic and as if she were about to throw up. She despised seeing the Doctor like that, and she despised the people who had the _gall_ to go home with her. As if they didn’t know who she really was, that this was just a temporary thing, that they were taking advantage of somebody more brilliant than they would ever be—

Yaz was self-aware enough to know that a good portion of that was jealousy. She also knew that odds were, Jane was more than an enthusiastic participant in those encounters. Heck, she’d seen it. But that did nothing to stop the pit that dropped in her stomach when she woke at three AM to the sound of drunken whispers, too loud to be stealthy, and it did nothing to make her feel better the next day, when she passed Jane in the hall on the way to work.

It was like—it was like Jane wasn’t hers anymore. Like she’d shared herself out to someone else, which was her right, of course, only the Doctor had never been interested in doing those kind of things. And it had always been Yaz she had grabbed by the hand with a mischievous sparkle in her eye, and that—that was _hers,_ damn it. And that was a stupid human thing to think, but then Yaz was just a stupid human, and the Doctor wasn’t supposed to be. 

And as Yaz peered through the peephole, disgusted and yet unable to resist— _she had to know, she had to compare who it was, why she chose them_ —it occurred to her that Jane hadn’t had somebody over since before Yaz had first dragged her into her apartment. The observation was interesting enough to give her pause, but before she had time to really consider the hopeful implications of such a thing, Jane and her partner came into view, and Yaz’s heart twisted.

It was a man this time, a tall, broad-shouldered bloke, grinning in that obnoxious way that Yaz had seen on many a guy’s face, the one that said: _oh yeah, I’m about to score._ Unconsciously, her hands, pressed against the door, curled into fists.

Jane slipped her hand out of the man’s grip to rummage in her purse for her keys. She found them, fumbled for the right one, and then shoved it into her lock. The door clicked, and with a light push, swung open to the darkened flat.

“Here it is.” Jane half-turned to look up at the man, and shot him a grin. Yaz wanted to scream. “The lights are out to save you the view, cos it ain’t much.”

“And here I thought you were saving on electricity.” The man grinned back at her, clearly pleased at his strung-together wit. _It’s not even funny,_ Yaz thought venomously. 

Jane shrugged, though the smile lingered. “Just trying to save you the view. You don’t have to come inside.”

“No, I want to.” The man stepped forward and snuck his arms around her waist, swaying only slightly as he did so. Jane didn’t quite push them off, but her eyes did flicker down to their placement. She appeared distinctly unimpressed. 

“I wanna see your place, baby. Bet it’s as beautiful as you are.”

Jane snorted. “I’ve a feeling you thought that was a compliment.” She shifted closer to the doorway, clearly trying to shrug out of the man’s grip, but he just moved closer. Then, with one quick jerk, he dragged her into him.

“Hey—” he said, irritation flashing through his tone. “I thought we were gonna—?”

In a flash Jane had her arms up and against his chest. She shoved, forcing him to stumble back, and in his surprise his arms fell from her waist. _“We’re_ not doing anything. You said you were walking me home to my flat!”

“Yeah, but—” Jane stepped back, then turned to slide into the flat, but the man lunged forward and grabbed her by the wrist. “There were implications!”

Jane turned to face him, and yanked uselessly at her arm. “Fuck your implications!”

“Don’t be a bitch!” the man growled, and pulled her towards him by the arm, ignoring her yelp of pain. “You were the one being all touchy-feely—”

And that was when Yaz couldn’t take anymore. Her badge was right by the door, on the endtable she always left it, and it only took her two seconds to snatch it up and fling the door open.

“Get off her!” she practically fell out the door, then planted herself right in front of the man, hands on her hips and eyes blazing. He looked up in confusion, which quickly turned to derision when he saw the size of her.

“Oh, so you’re her girlfriend?” he released his hold on Jane’s wrist, who jerked it back with a nasty look in his direction, and took a step forward. This close, he towered over Yaz, but she was used to dealing with thugs such as him. 

“Nope.” She said, popping the ‘p’. “Just a police officer responding to a noise complaint.”

And then she thrust the badge into his face. He took one look, and his eyes widened. “Oh, I—uh—I was just—”

“Assaulting a defenseless woman?” Yaz raised her eyebrows. “Lying to her about your intentions?”

“Um—” the man was white-faced now, his eyes darting between Yaz and the badge. “No, ma’am, I—”

And then he turned and fled, his boots echoing down the hallway. Yaz lowered her badge slowly, and watched him go.

“Well, that was easier than I expected,” she muttered. 

“What an asshole,” Jane spat behind her, and Yaz turned, relief washing through her. Her eyes roamed over the arm the man had caught, and she badly wanted to examine it, but bit her tongue. Jane was watching the man flee down the hallway as well, her eyes dark. “Swear to god, I see him around again I’ll—”

“Are you okay?” Yaz blurted out. Surprised, Jane’s eyes flew to her. Then she looked at her arm, and scowled.

“I’m fine, yeah.” She bobbed her head disjointedly up and down, and abruptly Yaz remembered that Jane was probably still very drunk. “Not the first jerk I’ve met. Nice of you to intervene, though.”

She said this all hastily, as if she could barely stand to get it out, and then turned and nearly fell into her flat. Yaz rushed forward to help her, but she righted herself at the last moment.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Yaz asked. Jane laughed, a little bitterly.

“I am, yeah, just drunk. Still, very drunk.” She was groping for the light switch now, and struggling to find it, until Yaz reached inside the doorway and flipped the switch for her. Jane blinked in surprise as light flooded the flat. “Oh. Thanks Yaz. Again, I guess.”

She stepped inside, and Yaz hesitated, then went after her. “Hey—”

She put her hand on her shoulder, and Jane froze. Quickly, Yaz jerked it back, and mentally kicked herself. Of course Jane wouldn’t want anybody touching her after such a traumatizing event. “Sorry, I just—are you sure you’re okay?”

Jane turned around, and her eyes found Yaz’s. She scrutinized her for several seconds, brow creasing. “Why do you care?”

“I—” Yaz stared at her. “I’m your friend?”

“Are you?” Jane surveyed her dubiously. “Why?”

“Huh?” Yaz could feel her mouth hanging open. “Because I like you? I like hanging out with you? I think you’re funny, and kind, and—”

She cut off before she started veering into Doctor categories. She could have listed a dozen more, each more unbelievable than the last, and she didn’t think Jane would buy ‘because you know how to program my toaster so it gets the radio too.’

“Sounds like you picked those off of an online dating profile.” Jane stepped towards her. Her eyes were a little too unfocused, enough to remind Yaz that Jane definitely wasn’t in control of all her facilities.

“I didn’t.” Yaz should have taken a step back. Instead she remained in place, because Jane kept coming closer, and Yaz sort of wanted to find out why that was. “You’re brilliant, Jane.”

“You barely know me.” Jane was only a foot or two away, and she was frowning as her eyes roamed over Yaz’s face, as if trying to find some sort of logic there, a key that would make everything click into place.

Yaz shrugged, suddenly very aware of Jane’s proximity. Then, what had she expected, really? Her mouth was dry when she spoke. “Not for lack of trying.”

“Not my fault I didn’t like the cop show.”

“We could have done something else.”

“Like what?”

“Like—” Yaz floundered. “I don’t know! But I’m the one who keeps trying, so if you don’t like me you might as well just say—”

And the without warning Jane flung her arms around Yaz’s shoulders and pulled her into a breathless kiss, the kind that felt as if she’d been waiting to do so for weeks. Yaz barely had time to respond, or for that matter, breathe, before Jane’s mouth found hers, rough and desperate and definitely, definitely not sober. She responded without thinking—it was hard to do anything else—and for one wonderful, selfish second, let herself sink into the moment. Jane’s hands tangled in her hair, and she leaned into Yaz, then stumbled.

Instantly, Yaz came crashing back to reality.

“Jane, stop!” she pulled back, or tried to, because as she did Jane just grabbed the front of her shirt and yanked her close again. Yaz disentangled her hands from her waist—no easy task—and caught Jane by the shoulders, using all of her strength gained from her police training to shove her back to arms length.

Jane nearly tumbled backwards, but righted herself, and then pushed Yaz’s arms off of her. “Fine, I get it! You don’t have to be so rough!”

“I’m not trying—” Immediately, Yaz released Jane, letting her arms fall to her side. Jane leveled her with a piercing glare, and then rolled her shoulders and winced, though Yaz didn’t think she actually had any injury. Not with the way she’d moved a second ago. “Sorry, Jane, I just—”

“I get it, you don’t want to,” Jane spat. A few locks of hair had fallen down over her face, and she pushed them back. “I’m sorry, it was stupid of me, I just—”

Then she looked away, and down at the ground, eyes hard, and Yaz caught a flash of terrible disappointment that, to her horror, very nearly bordered on tears. Yaz’s heart leapt into her throat, and she stepped closer without thinking, hands outstretched. “Wait, Jane, whatever you think, it’s not—”

“Oh, yeah?” Jane looked up, and Yaz’s heart slid back down again, all the way to her stomach, because sure enough, there were tears sparkling in her eyes. “What is it then? You just want to take pity on me, because you’re some goody two-shoes cop who can’t stand to see somebody who doesn’t have their life together? You want to take me on as a project, is that it?”

Yaz opened her mouth to object, but Jane kept going, tossing her hands in the air. “Oh yeah, poor old Jane, can’t keep a job, can’t keep her apartment together, doesn’t even know how to cook! And here I thought—well, fuck what I thought!” She laughed, harshly, and leveled a finger at Yaz, her eyes flashing with anger and—and _pain._ “I guess you just want somebody you can work on, huh? A hobby, to make yourself look good in comparison?”

Yaz was shaking her head, her hands out in front of her, vaguely aware of the finger still jabbing into her sternum. “No, Jane, I swear that’s not it at all, it’s _not—”_

“Yeah, well then why are you so obsessed with me?” Jane shouted, loud enough that Yaz winced, worried for the neighbors. Then she realized that she was the only neighbor within earshot. “Why are you so obsessed with getting to know me, if you don’t just want to—”

“Because I like you!” 

Jane stopped short. Her finger fell from Yaz’s chest. “Huh?”

Yaz took a step closer and, even though she knew there was a fifty percent chance she might regret it, she reached out and took Jane’s hand, giving it a squeeze. “I just…I just like you, Jane. And I want to make sure you’re okay.”

Jane glanced down at their linked arms, but didn’t pull away. Instead she looked up at Yaz, and drew herself up, eyes tight and jaw stubbornly set. “What the hell makes you think I’m not?”

“I just…” Yaz shook her head. “I don’t know. You just seem as if you’re trying to…forget about something.”

She could tell the second the words left her mouth that she’d hit the nail on the head. Jane’s mouth swung open, her jaw working uselessly, as if she wanted to say something but had no response. “I’m…I’m not…”

She closed her mouth again, so hard even Yaz could hear her teeth clack together, and somewhere in between that, her grip tightened on Yaz’s hand. Yaz looked down at the sudden pressure, the white knuckles standing out under her skin, and realized that maybe, for once, she had struck upon the right words. 

“I…You can’t just _accuse_ …” Jane was still staring at her, struggling to string the words together. Yaz watched her, brow creasing in worry the longer it went on. 

“Jane, are you...?”

She looked down again at her shoes, at their hands tightly pressed together, and then up at Yaz. Her eyes were shining brighter than ever, a sheen of barely held back tears, just on the verge of escaping. When she spoke, her voice came rough and small. “Y-Yaz? I think…I think maybe I am. T-trying to forget something, I mean.”

For a moment, Yaz wasn’t sure what to do. She hadn’t expected a confession, of all things. Jane had never told her anything about her life, and Yaz had only a vague idea of the trauma the Doctor had gone through, never mind whatever story she had cooked up and placed in Jane’s head. She hesitated, only for a millisecond as her mind ran through her options, and then she just decided to go with instinct.

She took another step forward, and slipped her other hand into Jane’s as well. “Do you…do you know what it is?”

Jane shook her head, desperate and confused, and now the tears were really starting to spill over, rolling down her cheeks and splashing off her chin. “…No.”

And then her face crumpled, and Yaz had just enough time to pull her close before she collapsed into Yaz’s arms. She clung to her, sobs wracking her body in wave after wave of a seemingly endless ocean of grief. Her head found Yaz’s shoulder, tears sinking immediately through her pajama shirt, but Yaz could have cared less. Instead she tightened her embrace, and whispered soothing, meaningless nonsense, the kind of things she thought her mother might have whispered to her when she was young and had nightmares. With one hand, she rubbed circles into Jane’s back, and felt her own heart neatly shatter. 

How much death and pain, Yaz wondered, could one see in two thousand years? 

More, probably, than Yaz could ever imagine.

They stayed that way for several long minutes, locked together in a tight embrace, Jane’s head cradled against Yaz’s shoulder as she cried. Eventually, however, Jane sniffled and pulled back. Her eyes and nose were red, her face still wet with tears, but she looked as if she had cried herself out. Yaz let her go reluctantly, illogically afraid that to do so would only leave her frail and defenseless again, stuck putting up pathetic, human shields against a trauma she didn’t even know existed.

“I…I’m sorry Yaz,” Jane said, and gave a small, pitiful laugh. “I don’t know what came over me. Must be the alcohol.”

Yaz shook her head. “I don’t think it is.”

Jane studied her over red-rimmed eyes, then sniffed again and reached up a hand to push away the strands of hair sticking to her wet cheek. “Yeah. Maybe it’s not.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Yaz asked, and her eyes fell to Jane’s hands, which had only moments before been wrapped around her. Now they were churning anxiously, unsure what to do with themselves. She desperately wanted to take them again, to let them know it was okay to be still.

“Not much to talk about is there, if I don’t remember?” Jane gave a watery smile, which barely lasted a second before fading back into anxious uncertainty. “I think I just…want to go to sleep. Sorry.”

“Nothing to apologize for,” Yaz said instantly. “Want me to come with you to your bedroom? Make sure you get out of those clothes?”

“Actually…” Jane’s eyes swept apprehensively over Yaz, darting down to her hands, then back to her eyes. She looked nervous, unsure of her next request. Afraid Yaz might say no. Yaz already knew that she wouldn’t. “Could you stay with me? For a little bit?”

Yaz smiled, nearly sagging with relief. She hadn’t been planning on leaving, anyway. And now she had permission to stay. “I’ll stay the whole night, Jane. I’m not going anywhere.”

————

It wasn’t until Jane had switched into her pajamas and crawled into bed, that Yaz remembered what day it was. She didn’t have her calendar, but she checked her watch, and saw the date she’d memorized nearly three months ago.

Today was the day. Three months had passed, and the experiment was over.

“You can switch off the lights, if you want,” Jane told her from where she sat in bed. She looked small there, propped up against the pillows with her blanket pulled up to her chin. “I don’t mind the dark.”

“Sure thing.” Yaz nodded, and flipped the switch down, before turning to blindly grope her way to the bed. She found the edge, along with the corner of the blanket, and pulled it back before clambering under, shivering against the chill. She could feel Jane’s warmth, only inches away, and stifled the urge to move closer. Her rulebook had long been tossed, but there were still boundaries.

But Jane crossed the lines herself, snuggling up the moment Yaz settled into the covers, tossing her arm across and needily pulling her close. Suddenly they were dangerously close to spooning, close enough for Yaz’s heart rate to ratchet up, and she almost pulled away out of sheer panic, then remembered that it was Jane who had initiated it. Jane who needed it, not her.

“Do you mind?” Jane asked, her hair tickling the back of Yaz’s neck. Yaz swung her head back and forth to say ‘no’, not trusting herself enough to speak. She felt Jane sigh, another exhale of needless relief, and she pulled her closer. Now they really were spooning, and in any other moment, Yaz might have been happy.

But she could only feel her heart still breaking, slowly, piece by piece. 

“Hey, Jane?” she whispered after a few moments. She felt Jane’s head shift slightly, raising to look at her. “Hmm?”

“If you want…” her throat was dry with indecision. This was what she had been meant to do after all. But was it the right choice? Or just an escape route, a way of not dealing with things? “I have something that can help you, if you want to look at it tomorrow.”

“Mmm,” was Jane’s answer, followed by a yawn. Yaz wasn’t sure she was entirely paying attention. Possibly, she wouldn’t even remember Yaz’s offer in the morning. “Sure, Yaz. I trust you. And thanks, by the way. For staying, and everything.”

“Wasn’t nothing,” Yaz answered, and felt Jane’s grin, accompanied by a quiet laugh, against her. “I just want to help you be okay.”

“Mm, okay. I’ll remember that, then. Yasmin Khan, the feelings guru.” Yaz heard some of Jane’s normal smile in her voice, slightly fractured and frail, but coming back all the same. “Yasmin Khan, who’s gonna fix all my problems.”

“Oh, Jane,” Yaz whispered, quiet enough that she wasn’t even sure she could hear it. “Don’t I wish.”

————

The Doctor woke to a pounding in her head, a layer of fuzz coating her tongue, and the strange sensation of somebody running their fingers through her hair. She groaned, shifting her head, and felt the fingers pause, abruptly, and then draw back to rest upon her shoulder. They began to trace lazy circles through her shirt, gentle and comforting. 

The Doctor raised her head slightly, wincing at the responding ache, and cracked one eye open. A blurry figure sat beside her, or more accurately, under her, for as the Doctor’s head cleared slightly, she came to realize that she had been sprawled stomach-down on the couch, and her head was resting on somebody’s thighs. She squinted, shifting slightly, and the figure coalesced into a fuzzy Yaz.

“Yaz?” she asked, and Yaz smiled, blurry and out of focus. A few blinks brought her into clarity, and despite the clattering in her head, the Doctor’s face spread into a broad grin.

“Did it work? The—ooww.” She cut off with a moan, and raised a hand to her head. “What happened? Did they attack us?”

Yaz shook her head, still smiling. There was something very warm and gentle to it, something that she couldn’t remember seeing in Yaz’s eyes before the experiment. At least, she didn’t think so. Everything about her was mixed up at the moment, but Yaz’s smile recalled a sensation she hadn’t felt in quite a long time. Reassurance, maybe. Trust.

“No, nobody attacked us. You’re just hung over, I think. Here, I can get you some water—”

“No,” the Doctor rasped, and without thinking, reached out, searching for Yaz’s hand on her shoulder, which she couldn't see but knew to be there. Sure enough, Yaz met her halfway, their fingers tangling together, and the Doctor let her head relax back into her lap with a small sigh.

“I just…need to rest, I think,” she said, though for the life of her she had no idea from what. Perhaps because her head was aching, and her mouth dry, and she felt slightly sick to her stomach, but none of that seemed to matter for the moment, because Yaz had a tight grip on her hand, and she wasn’t letting go.

Ah. That was the word the Doctor had been searching for. Safety.

“I think…did something happen? I feel like…something happened.”

Yaz shook her head, though her smile dropped off slightly, her gaze turning sober. “No, nothing happened. We just talked, really. We can talk some more about it, if you’d like.”

“Right,” the Doctor exhaled, suddenly exhausted again, and wondered how she had gotten mixed up in alcohol. She seemed to remember a lot of alcohol, and other substances. Strange. “We can talk…but…”

“Later?” Yaz guessed, and the Doctor lifted her head to smile up at her.

“Yeah, later. If that’s okay.”

“Of course it is, Doctor.” She began to stroke the Doctor’s hair again with her free hand, winding her fingers through blond locks. The Doctor sighed contentedly, and let her head sink back down again. Yaz’s lap was a comfy resting place, she thought. And best of all, she didn’t seem inclined to go anywhere.

“Are you going to stay here?” she asked Yaz, who let out a quiet laugh.

“Don't worry. I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

That was all the answer the Doctor needed. She let her eyes flutter shut, conscious only of the gentle movements of Yaz’s fingers through her hair, and moments later lost track of even that, as, under Yaz’s watchful eye, she gave over to a deep, dreamless sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> my thought was: how well can a human deal with the Doctor's trauma? probably, not very well. so I made this. 
> 
> If you want fic updates or to hear me rant about writing on twitter, follow me at: https://twitter.com/hetzi_clutch


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